Fear of Failure or Fear of Success

 Thoughts on the Process  No Responses »
Nov 052009
 
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Can fear of failure and fear of success be the same? The reason I ask is again because of that post at BCB.  I’ll read one person say how they have a fear of failure so it leads them to do XYZ.  The next person says s/he has a fear of success and it leads them to do the same XYZ.  Is it possible that one person can fear both failure and success and that the clash of these two fears lead us to where we currently are – which for me is in stasis.  I’m neither moving up nor moving down. I’m afraid of failing so I don’t gain the weight back, but maybe I’m afraid of succeeding so I can’t seem to take any more off.  An object that has 2 equal and opposing forces on it will stay in one spot forever, or until one of the forces overcomes the other. I guess I need to figure out how to tip the balance one way or another.  Just as long as it gets me back on the ‘losing’ side.

 Posted by Donna at 11:03 pm

What’s Going to Be Different This Time?

 Keeping Going, Thoughts on the Process  No Responses »
Nov 052009
 
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There was so much in this post over at BCB that I don’t want to let it drop.  The main topic  of conversation is basically, do we fail to lose weight and keep it off because we are afraid of success?  Or at least afraid of what is on the “other side” of weight loss.

For anyone who has lost and gained back their weight more than a couple of times, this is the Golden Question.

So why, over the last thirty years, have I regained the same 20 – 30 pounds so many times?  Except for a couple of pregnancies, I put weight on because I don’t allow myself to become the thinner version of me.  It’s like “goal weight” is a bright and colourful object at the bottom of a deep pool.  I work really hard to dive down and retrieve the object then float right back up to the surface again.  I have no means of anchoring myself to that weight – just an idea that that’s what I should weigh and a diet which can get me there.  And who wants to be anchored to the bottom of a pool anyway?  The whole picture is wrong and impossible.

Instead of thinking of a weight as the goal, I am trying to think of maintaining a lifestyle as the goal.  Yes, in order to be a slimmer version of me, I have to weigh less; I can’t change that.  But the numbers on the scale are only a tiny part of the change that is taking place.  I need a machine to measure attitude to food, self-perception, reaction to others – all those things that we don’t deal with so we put the weight back on.

I used to work in a prison – a real Victorian jail full of not the nicest men on earth and many of them in there for the umpteenth time.  When we talked, it became clear that they didn’t have any strategies for what they were going to do differently on the day they got released.  Many of them admitted that they were going to walk out the gates, cross the street to where their drug dealer would be waiting and spend their discharge grant on heroin.

That story tends to make people judgemental because we can see clearly what their problem is.   They need to walk right past the thing that keeps them in the loop of self-destruction and they need to work out that plan before they get released.  What makes me so different?  My drug of choice is food and I can’t give it up completely, but my attitude is exactly the same.

I hit some fairly arbitrary number, get released from my diet and run right back to the thing that got me locked up in the first place.   Heroin addicts see the drug as part of their freedom.  Dieters see unmeasured calories as part of their freedom.  We have to redefine freedom.

OK…..so here’s the freedom I want.

I want the freedom to try on clothes in a dressing room not feel disappointed in myself.

I want the freedom to walk upstairs beside someone 20 years younger and not be puffing and sweaty at the top.

I want the freedom to feel my stress/anger/sadness and not stuff it down with food.

I want the freedom to love food.

I want the freedom to be a slim & fit person without feeling that there’s a fat one trying to get out.

Because this weight loss journey has been so slow, I’ve had time to get closer to a few of those freedoms.  I may always be a work in progress but I do finally know in the depths of my heart that there is nothing in the fridge that will help me meet a deadline or pay my Visa bill.   And if you don’t understand what an achievement that is, you’re probably reading the wrong blog.  :)

 Posted by Millie at 9:24 am  Tagged with:

Afraid to Succeed

 Thoughts on the Process  2 Responses »
Nov 042009
 
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I had a new thought occur to me yesterday, about why I sometimes fall into binges.  Then on BCB this post really hit home.  There’s a lot of good thoughts in that thread.

As I explain in that thread, it occurred to me that maybe I binge as a rebellion against trying to control everything in my life.  Over the last month, I feel like I have no control over anything and it is seriously disturbing my calm. The renovations put my house into a mess, now work has us transitioning to new systems and I can FIND NOTHING!!!! Seriously, my reputation of knowing all and being able to do everything is in serious jeopardy.  Which led me to wonder if my need to have control at all times is what is causing me to subconsciously go off track.  My way of telling myself that it’s a little unhealthy to try to control everything and therefore I overeat to prove that I can’t really control myself.  <sigh> I’m having a hard time explaining what I mean.  The concept is just at the ends of my fingertips and I’m struggling to understand it.

 Posted by Donna at 12:26 am  Tagged with: , ,

But What About the Cookies?

 Thoughts on the Process  1 Response »
Nov 032009
 
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I used to think that, if I could just get the weight off, I could be the kind of person who has a biscuit tin and takes a biscuit or two with a cup of coffee then puts them away.

I’m pretty sure now that vision of my future self is never going to become real.  Instead, I’ve faced up to the fact that I’m a problem eater and biscuit tins won’t ever be playing a part in caring for my future self and keeping weight off.

Why?   It’s probably a lot to do with having been comforted with food during stressful family times as a child.  My mom certainly ate her feelings.  When my children cried, she offered them “Ice-Cream Therapy”.  I have no hard feelings about that at all because I’m also counting on the fact that love transcends flawed parenting.  We all have our stuff.

But identifying a problem doesn’t make it go away.

Years ago I read a book called The End of OverEating which advocated having all the tempting food on hand to normalise it.  No more Good Food and Bad Food.  It acknowledged that people would probably put on a bit of weight then just get used to the idea that all food was available at all times.

I’m afraid it wasn’t a great experiment for me.  And these days, the idea just makes me angry – why should anyone be encouraged to eat all manner of crap in the name of “self-care”?  Yikes.  OR…..being honest, maybe it just scares me.

The problem for me isn’t Good and Bad food.  If I really want chocolate, I usually buy a 35g bar of Green and Black.  (I used to buy a 100g bar or a huge bag of Maltesers so that’s some progress.)

The problem is that no bag, pack, box ever goes unemptied.  Ever.

Is it because I DO think of it as Bad and have to get rid of it?

Is it because I think of it as “the last” because I’m going to be “Good” tomorrow?

Is it just because I’m greedy?

My intellect shouts NO!  But my heart cringes a little at those questions.

OK – as I’ve been typing I realise that I REALLY want to be the kind of person who can have a cookie jar and not empty it in an evening.  One day, I want to be the grandma who can bake and not look like she bakes.  So rather than just cave into the “problem eater” thing, I want to make progress towards that.

But that’s another post.

 Posted by Millie at 9:11 am  Tagged with:

Pre-diabetic? That changes things…

 Health, Starting Again Again  1 Response »
Nov 022009
 
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After years of damaging my health by using food in the wrong ways, and for the wrong reasons, it has finally almost caught up with me. My blood sugar stepped just over the line into “pre-diabetic.” This is a little scary, but not totally unexpected. Not long ago, my dad heard the same word from his doctor. He immediately gave up sugar and most white carbs, and has embraced his new eating habits with a strength I can only hope I inherited from him along with the tendency toward diabetes. How will I handle it? He always said that regardless of his sweet tooth, he could give up sugar if his health depended on it. And he did. Can I? I can tell you with certainty that I WILL. I have to now. And I have a hunch it won’t be easy. But I’m up to the challenge. After all, I am my father’s daughter!

All this to say that my focus will be on healthy food and clean eating and exercise (workouts as well as normal daily activity) for the sake of my health, which now involves numbers more important than just those on the scale. Yes, the scale is still important as a measure of my success in losing weight–it always WILL be–but there are now other things to consider. Do I want to be a diabetic? No. I don’t even like that I’m officially pre-diabetic. So that has to change. And I have all the tools I need to do that. I’ve always had them, I just didn’t always use them. I used excuses instead.

Now begins the journey where I really see what I am made of. “Sugar and spice and all things nice?” Not anymore. Now it’s “whole grains, produce, & lean protein, spice, and all things strong and determined.” Maybe it doesn’t sound like a nursery rhyme, but this isn’t fun and games anymore. It’s serious. I think it’s been serious all along, but I fooled myself into thinking it was just “how I was.” And how I was has already changed into how I AM. And I AM someone with pre-diabetic blood sugar. Gracie, you know what to do. So do it.

 Posted by Gracie at 1:54 pm  Tagged with:

22lbs in 22 months

 Keeping Going, Thoughts on the Process  1 Response »
Nov 022009
 
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This has been the weirdest weight loss effort of my life and, for that reason, I have hope that it weill be my last.

Almost two years ago, after a sartorially uncomfortable Christmas, I knew I’d put on a little weight and said something like the following to my husband:

“I think it’s time to take off a few pounds.  I’m glad that I know when I’ve got to that point.  I seem to just “know” when I’ve got to 160.”

Let me assure you that what was going on inside me was not so calm.  I carry most of my extra weight on my torso.  My bust and midriff get bigger faster than my hips.  I hate sitting because of the spillover and I don’t feel at home in my own body.

So I stepped on the scale and saw 170 pounds. So much for knowing my body.

Since then, I have lost 22 pounds with a few more to go.  It still shocks me how I didn’t notice my body getting bigger and bigger.  I blame lycra, but that’s beside the point.

The point is that it’s taken me twenty-two months to lose twenty-two pounds and that’s ok with me because it has been the most stressful time of my life. The first stress was a three month renovation on our house.  We’d been unpacked for less than three weeks when my mom suffered a brain injury and I went to Canada to stay with my dad and try to get things ready for a very changed Mom to come home.  I returned to the UK to find that I needed surgery, and, while recuperating, my dad died.  Essentially, my life has been turn sideways, if not upside down and I’ve had to learn how to eat through stress and grief and fear and frequent jet lag.  I am thrilled that I have lost an average of a pound a month through all that.

Of course, the average really represents both losses and gains and the biggest gain of eight pounds happened during the 3 months of Christmas/surgery/living alone in my dad’s house after he died. I’ve also had months of maintaining and it’s been exciting to find that by walking more in daily life and just being careful about food choices, I CAN keep weight off.

I’m not “there” yet – and am still not quite sure where “there” is.  It might be five pounds away. Or two or ten.  I’m hoping I’ll know when I get there.  But the one thing I know is that this is for life.  The lovely thing about a twenty-two month journey is that so many things that I use to consider “on programme” are simply real life.

Like eating olive oil.

Getting in at least 5 fruits and veg a day.

Noticing the alcohol consumption.

Saving bread for a treat.

Eating more fish.

Asking for dressing and sauces on the side in restaurants.

These are genuinely enjoyable parts of eating now and I’m ready to see where the next couple of years takes me.

 Posted by Millie at 9:13 am  Tagged with:

I’m trying something new

 Things to try  2 Responses »
Nov 012009
 
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I’m starting a journal today.  I’m going to try to write something every day and I’m going to try to make note of my feelings.  An honest note of my feelings.  That’s why I’m going to keep my journal to myself, if I post it out somewhere then there will be too much temptation to edit it for other people.

When I was posting on the Fab 40s Remedial site this summer, I was logging my food faithfully and staying on program.  I’ve had to face the fact that maybe all those people who talk about journalling their feelings might be onto something.  I’ve always kind of dismissed that, not for others but for myself.  I didn’t think I was an emotional eater.  Well, maybe I was just fooling myself.  I guess I’ll find out.  However, I think it will be good for me, even if it doesn’t help with controlling my food intake.

 Posted by Donna at 8:43 pm  Tagged with: ,
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